Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Dancers in Watercolour

Another excellent demonstration today. This time David Wilcox showed how he tackles painting ballet dancers in watercolour. Working with his support almost vertical must have been a challenge as accidental runs could so easily have wrecked his efforts but he worked with that to create some subtle curtains of colour in the painting of the background. He worked with a limited palette and worked on the background and negative shapes first before beginning to work shadows into the figures. Clothing and flesh colours came later. The legs of dancers offer graceful shapes and hint at the power and fitness needed for performance dance. To see them take shape in a painting with very thinly apply red and violet was a revelation.
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An example of David's work

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Much of David's work is based on his own photographs taken at dress rehearsals in Birmingham. Visit his website http://www.davidwilcox-paintings.co.uk/ to see more of his work and to understand what I mean by his limited palette.